Shooting Schedule

Storyboard

Ancillary Task: Poster

Ancillary Task: Double Page TV Magazine Article

Ancillary Task: Pictures

Ancillary Task: Drafts

Annotated Article

Photos From Filming

Research Into Final Idea

Our final idea is Becoming Vegan, the documentary about a student going from being a meat eater to eating a strict vegan diet and to see how it effects him in several ways. To research this area we actively searched on several websites to see what foods were acceptable for a vegan to eat and we found that there were a lot of every day items that were not in a vegan diet. We also searched for stastics on how may people in the UK are actually vegan, and we researched what effects we could expect to get from switching to such a different diet. We also went into Brighton to look for a health specialist to interview.

Analysis of Questionnaire Results

Whilst conducting our questionnaire we found that 8/10 people enjoyed watching documentaries once a week,
we also found that the majority (9/10) of teenagers would prefer to watch a documentary on BBC Three after 9pm. The preferred day of the week varied with Tuesday getting the most votes by 1.

Questionnaire

Documentary: Initial Ideas

Becoming Vegan

A documentary about one students struggle to see what it is like to go from a meat eater to a strict vegan diet and to see ho it effects his health, social life, and how cost effective it is in comparison. Can include interview with diet expert, video diaries of the student showing how it is effecting him mentally and physically.

Britains Teenagers: A Drinking Society

A documentary about teenagers in Britain and how many are underage drinking, go out in Brighton on a Friday/Satuday night to see how many teenagers are out, interview policemen on patrol and maybe interview help agencies.

 Teenage Pregnancies: A Fashion Statement

A documentary documenting the journey of a pregnant teenager and a teenager who has recently given birth and how teenage prenancies have effected them at these stages, could include interviews with pregnant teenagers and interviews with the parents and how it effects them, could also interview parents who gave birth when they were teenagers and what they did to build a life for themselves.

Louis Theroux Essay

How does Louis Theroux use documentary conventions to bring the genre into the mainstream?

 Louis Theroux isn’t afraid to convey his own opinions to the ‘characters’ and the audience in his documentaries, he actively says what he feels and usually what the audience most likely feels aswell. 

His interview with ‘Gramps’, the head of the Phelps family, contains a lot of tension with Theroux asking questions he knows will get his desired controversial reaction. 

The picketing so close to the funerals of the fallen soldiers creates a sense of awkwardness and anticipation, having built up the Phelps’ as the ‘most hated family in America’ and then they are doing something so disrespectful helps build the anticipation towards an expected confrontation.

Louis Theroux develops an audiences knowledge by presenting his documentaries from a side that most people wouldn’t normally see, in ‘The most hated family in America’ he documents the families everyday life, how life is for them in school and their local community, almost to build some sympathy towards them and present them as ‘normal’ people so the audience can relate to them, as well as their activities to do with the church. 

Theroux, while presenting these documentaries and getting involved in certain aspects, is generally less confrontational than someone like Michael Moore as he mainly watches from afar observing instead of being in the forefront of the ‘action’. Using such conventions like drama and suspense Theroux exacerbates certain situations to create tension and sometimes there is a sense of narrative in his documentaries making them aesthetically look like a drama program instead of an informative documentary, which I think brings it into the mainstream.


Louis Theroux Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Theroux